Difference between 720p and 1080p projectors?


I've had an Optoma H79 projector for 5 years and it still works great, but I'm wondering how much video quality difference is there between it's 720p resolution and newer projectors offering 1080p. And is there a very noticable visual difference/improvement or essentially the same?
rxlarry99
look at projectorcentral.com for answers to many technical questions regarding projectors
Most HD cable, satellite, and over the air signals are broadcast in 720P (1080i) not 1080P. The most common source for 1080P is the Blu-ray DVD format. So, on broadcast HD, you won't see much difference between a 720P or 1080P projector.
I may be wrong,but I think a 1080p has around 2,076,300 pixels to make a picture,720p has around 921,600 pixels.That is 2X the pixel count.I don't know how much of a percentage increase in a sharper picture that would be.200%? But the larger the screen,the more you could tell how much better 1080p BluRays are.The way I understand,we won't be seeing any 1080p broadcast for years due to limited bandwidth.Who knows if there will be any other 1080p sources besides BluRay,computers,and video games.Don't hold me to this info.
720p looks about like a good 35 mm print in a movie theater. 1080p sourced from Blu-ray to a 1080p display looks like a clean window onto the real thing.

720p IS NOT the same thing as 1080i. 1080i actually has 1080 discrete lines of resolution; it's just that it takes two 60Hz cycles to see them all. Still, you're getting a display of 2,076,300 pixels. A 1080p display upconverts 1080i to 1080p and you really get 1080 lines of resolution. Although a native 720p LCD/DLP/Plasma display can accept 1080i input, it downconverts it to 720p, which gives you 921,600 pixels.

In the case of a front projector, I would think that a 7 foot screen would show a dramatic increase in sharpness with a 1080p projector over 720p, especially when sourced from either 1080i broadcast or especially 1080p Blu-ray. Once you experience 1080p from source to display, you'll never want to return to anything less.
Thanks for all the info guys; just when I think I'm understanding more about this hobby, I'm humbled again. If later this year, I was to upgrade to a 1080p projector for Blu-ray DVDs, what projectors would you recommend for under $2,000?